After All This Time
by LotrNaustenfan
Summary: Three years after Sandor leaves Kings Landing, he finds himself in the North before the throne of a very beautiful red headed Wolf Queen, who asks "What are you doing here?" His answer and other questions. SanSan. Rated T only because of the language.


A/N: It's been a long time since I have written anything, but this turned out quite good, I think. It is the first time I have written anything for ASOIAF, but I read an unbelievable amount of it, and especially this pairing. I really only intend this to be a one shot, especially since every time I attempt to write a chaptered story I get lost somewhere in the middle. I hope you all enjoy this. I enjoyed writing it, either way.

Disclaimer: I'm not GRRM, obviously, or I wouldn't be wasting the money I could be making by publishing on a public internet archive.

Thanks for reading! Review if you feel generous (I rarely do, so I can't really berate anyone for not doing so).

_**After All this Time**_

Sandor Clegane couldn't believe his damned luck. He had traveled for over a fortnight to get there. Through dense fog and horrible snow and thunderstorms each in their turn, he had gone like a madman with a purpose. He had to know if it was true - if she was there. Finally having made it to his destination in the freezing north, with barely his limbs to carry him, the soldiers at the gate had recognized him immediately and dragged him like a screaming child who was robbed of a precious toy. He told himself that it was inevitable, he deserved this for everything he had done in his Gods forsaken life. With a single word from the soldier hefting him at his left, his mind emptied.

"Take him before the Queen. She wishes to see this dead man."

So it was true then? She was really here and she was really the Queen?

He had no time to ask the question even if he had possessed the ability to mouth it over the lump that formed in his throat. He entered the great fortress with eyes downcast until the soldiers surrounding him threw him to the ground and exited the room.

There was nearly no light in the room, to spite the piercing sun just outside the doors. He glanced around and saw a broad hall, clearly designed for receiving visitors, with stone and wood walls in equal parts. The few candles in the room had been put out and the smoke swirled in the sparse light coming from the only window in the hall high above a dais where sat a throne of stone.

"I thought you were dead," spoke a clear voice from the shadows. Sandor glanced around but saw no one. Eyes were clearly unnecessary as he would know the voice anywhere. Even after all this time, he felt himself nearly mutter her name into the dark cold room.

"Not yet. Sorry to disappoint," he said instead, trying to regain his composure.

"But Arya said-"

"I don't give a fuck what the wolf bitch said. She's a liar," he almost yelled, finding anger to be a much easier emotion to comprehend than the one spinning in his gruesome head, "She left me for dead true enough."

"How did you survive your wounds?" He noticed the voice was moving, but he still could not catch a glimpse. His mind created a picture, but he knew she would look different now. No longer a little girl, he whispered in his thoughts.

"I'm lucky I guess," he said as he swallowed his nerves.

"Where have you been then, all this time?"

"Recovering. Healing."

"For 3 years?"

"Had a lifetime of wounds to heal from."

"There were rumors-"

Before she could continue, he cut her off. He couldn't hear the words from her lips. It was too cruel to think again of those first moments when he had heard the rumors and been reduced to terror that she might hear it too and think it was him. He had certainly never given her any reason to believe he would do any different.

"Aye. I heard them too. Why don't you bloody well ask the question, dammit. You want to know if it was me raping and pillaging through the Riverlands, then I can tell you it most certainly fucking wasn't. I may be an asshole, but raping and pillaging would have been difficult in my condition at the time, not to mention it's not my style."

"So what were you doing all this time? Where were you?" Her voice was drawing closer, but still hidden, he imagined he could smell her, but that couldn't be. He had created this fantasy so many times in his mind, it had to be a trick of his subconscious brain.

"The Quiet Isle. When the wolf b-when your sister left me for dead, I was found by the Brothers. They raised me up and healed me first and when I was done healing they gave me a place to hide. Satisfied?"

"You have changed," the voice said, as a young woman with auburn waves for hair and pretty pink lips and cheeks walked out of the shadows to stand within arms distance from him. He felt his breath catch at her visage.

"Aye, so have you, your grace," he said and he meant it. She was still beautiful, beautiful enough to harden any cock, but her eyes spoke of experience and strength. She had survived the war without a mark on her perfect skin, but he knew, probably more than anyone else, that the wounds were deeper in her and it read in her crystal clear blue eyes.

"Don't call me that."

"You're a damn Queen are you not?"

"Queen Regent, there is a difference." She seemed angry, or annoyed he couldn't tell, but it was so different from the girl he had known that he couldn't help, but get caught off guard by it. Queen Regent, he thought, how quaint. In the next instant, he felt the growl build up in his chest. As so many times before, it brought to his mind the image of the bastard Lannister with his hands on that perfect skin of hers, and it made him sick.

"Ah so the dwarf put a whelp in you after all, aye? So where is the imp? I didn't see him on the way in."

"I have not seen Tyrion Lannister for over 2 years. Your guess is as good as mine of his where-abouts." She spoke so matter-of-factly with almost no emotion in her eyes that he almost missed her next words. "I am Regent until my brother comes of age and becomes King of the North like his brother before him."

"Begging your pardon, your Grace." He didn't even try to keep the relief out of his voice.

"You called me a different name once." She said with a wistful look in her eyes as she turned toward the throne and gazed into the light streaming down. She seemed like one of the seven walking direct out of the seven heavens as she descended into the light. "At the time I thought it was an insult, but over time I've come to realize it was the closest to an endearment as you were capable of."

She did not turn, did not acknowledge him, didn't even vocalize the name, not that she needed to. It was the name he called her in his thoughts, always had.

"Are you saying you want me to call you 'Little Bird'? I don't think your men would like that very much," he rasped sarcastically, thinking of the hard faced men who had drug him from the gates to the throne room. She turned sharply to stare at him with narrowed eyes and parted lips.

"True enough, but my men are not here at the moment." Her words were like heat to ice, and he was melting. She surely didn't understand the implications of her statement, but it reminded him of another night when they were alone with a sky painted green and he had nearly kissed her, nearly fucked her, if she had not placed that porcelain hand upon his scarred cheek. He tried to recall that little girl to his mind, but he didn't see her before him. Who he saw was far more glorious, far more worthy of worship.

"It doesn't suit you anyway. You aren't a Little Bird anymore. You are a wolf and no mistake."

Her eyes flashed with something unnameable. "You know, no one has ever said that to me before." She walked to the throne again, not turning, not seeing how he would take it and it allowed him to admire her for all that she had become. Her hair in braids in the northern style, as he had not seen it since the first time he saw her in this very fortress. Her crown was twisted steel with no adornments and the rest of her attire mirrored it, with grey silks and her white fur sleeves.

She seemed far away, like she forgot he was there as she said, "When I was a girl, everyone used to comment on how alike to a wolf my family was. Robb was strong like a wolf, Jon - noble, Arya - wild, Bran - clever and even little Rickon is sometimes all those things in one. But all anyone ever said of me was that I was pretty. What good did pretty ever do anyone?"

"It won you a crown."

"Why are you here, Sandor Clegane?" Her voice was sharp, queenly, he thought as he stared, dumbfounded into her endlessly blue eyes.

"You know, I heard you had gone back to the North and taken the crown."

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not."

He didn't have to tell her that he would have followed her to the seven hells, seven heavens, if she had commanded him to. He had failed her once. He never would again. He was a dog, and a dog needed a master and no kennel master could compare to her radiance, shining like it provided nourishment more enriching than food or drink, even Dornish wine. He had always been hers and now she knew, if she didn't before.

No more words were spoken as she crossed the threshold to his side, stiring the dust from the ground with her skirts and the candles smoke with her hair.

She was in his arms in seconds, and her hand was upon his face again like the last time he had seen his beautiful, lovely, darling little bird.


End file.
